The first and only time I ever
got called a “f_g” was on Thayer Street.
It was 2010 and Brown University
was on winter break. I remember
thinking the situation was laughable.
Imagine getting called a gay slur on
Thayer Street of all places.
But it was then I realized that Thayer
Street is a very different place when
school is not in session. The students
create their own culture and when that
culture disappears, a vacuum is created
that can be filled by...all kinds of people.
After that, I never really felt comfortable
being on Thayer unless Brown was in
session. Say what you want about those
students, but the jerk who yelled the “f”
word at me and then ran away nine years
ago was probably well-aware that if he
tried that during the school year, he would
have been shouted down by five or six
undergrads carrying protest signs and
copies of A Little Life.
(If you need to beat up a homophobe with
a book, trust me, there is no better option
than A Little Life.)
My aversion to off-season Thayer lasted
right up until this summer began. The
warmer months have always triggered
these weird personality pivots in me,
and for some reason, I find myself
spending all my time in one place--
and it’s never a place that makes sense.
One year it was Garden City in Cranston.
One year it was the various stores on
Bald Hill Road.
One very dark summer was spent in
Bristol and maybe one day if you’re
lucky, you’ll get a nice personal history
about that indie movie horror show.
No matter what I do, the heat pulls me
towards a place I’ve otherwise been
forgetting about or just not thinking
about at all.
This summer that place was Thayer
Street.
Maybe I was hoping to recapture that
youthful nostalgia so many Rhode
Islanders have of driving to the East
Side after school to stand around with
a bunch of stoners and discuss who
sucks (everyone) and which bands
don’t suck (none of them) and which
movies don’t suck (none of them except
for Reservoir Dogs).
But I knew that what I would be getting
was going to be far different than your
average Thayer experience, because
I would be there in the summer, and if
there’s one thing you can count on
regarding Thayer and the summer, it’s
that there is absolutely nothing you can
count on.
The various summer memories I have
involving Thayer include everything
from bikers to Mineral Spring expats
to that girl I met one year on my birthday
who told me that she could see how I
died and it was going to involve a
chihuahua and Lucy Lawless.
It’s the chaos--and the proximity to
Antonio’s pizza--that makes it all
worthwhile.
This year, however, things didn’t seem
so chaotic.
In fact, they seemed downright...
commercial.
Now, before you go wondering if this
is going to be one of those pieces all
about how Thayer Street, like every
other beloved Rhode Island institution
that glows greater in the memory than
it ever did in reality, has deteriorated--
fear not.
Many articles like that have already been
written by far better writers than I am,
but this isn’t exactly going to be a love
letter either.
It’s a more of a dispatch from the edge
--or the edge of Hope and College Hill.
The first night I took a walk down Thayer
for the first time in ages was a few weeks
ago, and I was immediately struck by
how little I remembered about the Thayer
that used to be. Granted, aside from the
Avon, downtown always held a softer
spot in my heart, but I still spent a significant
amount of time on first dates at the Starbucks
and eating my weight in late-night burgers
at the Johnny Rockets, and those used to
be some of the more mainstream experiences
you could have on the street.
Now it’s geographically anchored by a Shake
Shack and the promise of a Chase Bank in
the near future exactly where Paragon used
to be.
The Starbucks is still there, but even the
Johnny Rockets has fallen to a B.GOOD
even though the facade remains the same.
Mass appeal has fallen victim to chic and
shaggy. The kind of retro takeover that’s
happened to Times Square, Las Vegas,
and virtually any place where gays assemble.
The prevailing wisdom would be--what a
shame, but if even part of these places
remain alive by selling out, you have to
wonder if in some way it’s worth it.
The pleasure of walking down Thayer and
bumping into a guy who offers to give you
a free tattoo if you drive him to Narragansett
once he’s done is still alive and well (believe
me, it happened to me there last week), but
the philosophizing stoners seem to be long
gone, or perhaps, more mobile. There’s no
more standing around, or seeing where the
night takes you. Even the off-season crowds
seem to be more homogenous. The bikers
have, for the most part, dispersed--along
with the frat boys who impressed their girlfriends
by taking them out for a night at Kartabar.
Now there’s a Shaking Crab to go with your
Shake Shack, and everything feels very...
tourist-y.
One night I talked a friend into getting Durk’s
Bar*B*Q with me, followed by the insanely
entertaining Wild Rose at the Avon, and then
Insomnia Cookies on the way back to the car,
and we were both a little disappointed that
nothing derailed our night.
No run-ins with friends we hadn’t seen in
weeks.
No witnessing an altercation over a parking
spot.
No interesting first date conversations to
eavesdrop on as we pass the diners eating
outside of Andrea’s.
We had a perfectly lovely evening.
But it wasn’t an...interesting evening.
It wasn’t the Robert Altman/Nashville-style
randomness you used to be able to have at
all sorts of places in the littlest state where
“everybody knows everybody” used to mean
“you can’t get away from anybody.”
Now, we don’t venture out as much.
We don’t run into people unexpectedly
because Facebook tells us where everyone
is.
We might fear missing out, but we don’t
wonder what’s going on.
I don’t want to fall into the trap of getting all
lofty and poetic, but it seems fair to say
that what made Thayer great was the
greater culture of being young at a certain
time and a certain place, and that culture
no longer exists, so how can Thayer be
to blame?
Now it’s a nice place to take some out-of-
towners if you want to give them a nice little
dose of New England capitalism and cuisine
without the fear of having a man with purple
hair and the most beautiful turquoise eyes
you’ve ever seen ask to hold your hand for
no reason whatsoever and then disappear
into the night after he let go (#RIP2009).
Maybe it’s unfair to ask more of it than that.
Maybe those of us with our memories of it
are richer than we deserve to be.
Maybe we should just do everything we
can to make sure nothing ever happens
to the tortellini pizza at Antonio’s or the
falafels at East Side Pockets or Blue State
Coffee or so-help-me-if-we-lose-the-Avon-
we-might-as-well-burn-all-of-Providence-to-
the-ground.
Hell, I can’t even let go of Ben and Jerry’s
until I can convince enough friends to eat
a Vermonster with me.
They still have Vermonsters, right?
The last time I took a stroll down Thayer
before sitting down to write this article was
just a few days ago, and right in front of the
Brown Bookstore, there was a protest
happening over--of all things--Shake Shack.
The protester was a young man with a
ponytail and a megaphone yelling about
the evils of meat consumption at people
driving by or leaving the Shake Shack.
I’m sad to say I was one of them. I can’t
resist the curly fries. I’m only human.
But I stopped by the protest. It felt very
thrown-together, and I don’t mean that as
a jab. It felt exciting. Poorly-attended,
but exciting. Two people stopped to talk
to the young man. It was hard to hear
what they were saying as he conversed
with them using his megaphone, but it
made for an amusing half-conversation
that could be heard up and down the
street. Cars honked their horns. A
woman with a stroller took out her baby
and breastfed it while she listed some
statistics she had read in Atlantic Monthly
about how cows are contributing to global
warming. One guy showed another guy
his newest piercing. A teenager went by
on a skateboard, and a car pulled up
playing Bob Marley so loud it almost
drowned out the small symphony of chaos
that was playing in front of a bookstore
that wouldn’t have any students in it for
another month or so.
After a few minutes, the breastfeeding
mother went to meet a friend at PokeWorks.
The pierced man and his friend said their
goodbyes. The car drove off and took Bob
Marley with it.
I lingered for a bit, but even the protester
got quiet. He seemed surprised by how
quickly a salon can come together and then
evaporate, but I wasn’t.
After all, this wasn’t my first time on Thayer.
At least, not that Thayer.
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